Monday, January 13, 2014

Zylarthen and OD&D

I thought I would take a page or
so to compare Seven Voyages of Zylarthen with its parent, OD&D circa 1974-75.

Changes, expansions and
additions include:

1. A big change in the original trinity: Thieves
replace Clerics. We did this for a number of reasons that I won’t argue for
here, but I think it “fit” both with our own goals and the spirit of the
original. Zylarthen Thieves are a bit different—simpler in conception,
perhaps—than some of the standard offerings, but owe much to the discussions of
Thieves and Thief abilities by some of the old school bloggers. In turn, spells
are shuffled around, as might be expected. Turning Undead becomes something
that any character can theoretically do (with a holy symbol) but that enhances
the importance of wisdom (that perennial “dump-stat”). And healing, as well as
“surgery” becomes a sort of group activity, as opposed to being relegated to
Clerical “medics”.

2. A simple but I think robust mechanic
for differentiating weapons in an interesting and meaningful way while for the
most part preserving the original conception of all weapons doing the same 1-6
hits of damage.

3. A more “realistic” but also (I hope)
simple and playable set of encumbrance rules with the goal of enhancing “resource
management” decision-making. The equipment list is somewhat expanded to include
additional essential items (and a few whimsical ones) but hopefully avoids the
temptation of “item creep”.

4. A different take on treasure and
experience points that (hopefully) goes a bit towards “solving” some of the
issues involving living expenses and player-characters accumulating “too much”
money, as well as creating additional interesting decisions for the players. As
with a number of other items, the idea is not completely original but makes liberal
use of some of the ideas that have been floating around the old school
blogosphere for some time.

5. A relatively unique take on player-character
and monster languages that makes knowing extra languages more meaningful while
making the question of which monsters speak what more interesting and unpredictable.

6. Enhanced tactical combat options,
including rules for doing additional damage, fighting with two weapons, weapon
breaks and more, while keeping things as simple and intuitive as possible.

7. Rules for going to negative or (as I
call it) zero hit points that preserve the relative lethality of OD&D
combat (yes, you very well might die) but that also create some interesting
situations and decisions.

8. Greatly expanded content for some of
the “lost” or barely mentioned monsters in OD&D such as Amazons, Witches,
Vikings, Androids, Martians and others (including gods and goddesses), as well
as new or somewhat new takes on a few standard and giant insects and animals. There
is also additional detail on potential hirelings, troop types and non-player
character parties. These are accompanied by comprehensive and thorough monster
level and wilderness encounter tables in the old school style.

9. An original method for creating
wilderness maps and expanded or clarified rules for wilderness adventuring,
using the (often neglected) suggestions from the third little brown book as a
springboard.

Major areas of continuity
include:

1. De-emphasizing the “make or break”
importance of ability scores (in line with the original edition) and thus
offering a relatively small and clear list of potential bonuses and penalties.

2. Drawing the line at three (or six)
classes and preserving the “race as class” concept.

3. Preserving the rough outlines of the original
level and experience point progressions while offering all new level titles
(for both Lawful and Chaotic characters) up to “name” level.

4. Preserving the original
“pre-inflation” mechanic of 1d6 damage and 1d6 hit dice for player characters
and monsters, along with a general bias against multiple attack routines.

5. Clearly compiling and integrating all
or almost all monsters and spells from the first one-and-a-half or so years of
the game—with a few twists given the absence of player-character Clerics (there
are still non-player character Evil High Priests, of course!) and a small
number of semi-new spells for Witches.

Bringing
things back to the “fairy tale” illustrations of John Dickson Batten, I wanted
a game that my children could play, to some extent free of (as I see it) the
sort of overpowered pumped up videogame or “anime” vibe of many contemporary
games as well as some of the gothic or darker elements present in others. That, in and of itself, is not a criticism of, say, brilliant “adult”
approaches such as Carcosa or Lamentations of the Flame Princess, but I felt
there was an unmet need for something on the other side of the scale.

Not to get too wonky, but "laying on hands" was defined in OD&D and 1e as the Paladin ability. Zylarthen leaves Paladins pretty much unchanged-they can lay on hands-though it introduces them as NPC's only (see Book of Monsters, pp. 44-5). Of course in OD&D Clerics had the spells "Cure Light Wounds" and "Cure Heavy Wounds". In Zylarthen Magic-Users have these (or at least they "have" them if they have discovered the spells). The hope is that the "automatic" healing of 2-7 hits per day for every 5 full levels of the party, makes up for the absence of Clerics, without forcing Magic-Users to put cure spells into their precious spell slots. Whether or not readers and players of Zylarthen will find the substitute aesthetically satisfying (as the author does) is of course another question. :)